Page 109 of Cruel Debts
"Minnie, listen—" I tried, but she cut me off, swinging the gun inmydirection next.
"No,youlisten! I know what guys like you want from girls like us." Her eyes darted to Trinity, and she grimaced. "All men are the same, deep down. All they want is to use us. They'll take what they can, and when they're done with us, we're just dumped on whatever asshole will take their trash out for them. Preferably, if there's something in it for them."
Trinity's lips curled up in disgust. "They're not like that," she protested, and I swore under my breath, wishing she'd just keep her mouth shut. "They've never been like that."
"All men, Trinity McCoy," Minnie doubled down, her gun back against Trinity's head instead of pointed at me. "All of them. Even your precious boys here have secrets that turned them into monsters."
"Minnie," I threatened, but she wasn't listening. And the longer her gun barrel stayed pointed at Trinity, the more dangerous this situation became. "You don't want to do this."
"You're right, I don't," she agreed, "but I don't have a choice."
Gunshots continued to rain down around us, and a part of me chipped away every time Trinity flinched from one that got too close.
I had to get her out of here, and fast.
I just hoped she'd been paying attention when I showed her the hand signals for combat the other day during her lesson.
My eyes darted down to my hand, and hers followed. She watched carefully as I curled my hand into a fist: hold. Her eyes stayed glued there, and I tried to keep Minnie distracted as I formed the next signal for Trin.
"Minnie, you can walk away from all this." My hand morphed into a two-fingered salute, and I jerked it down, signaling for her to drop when I repeated the action. "You can change."
"A tiger can't change its stripes," she lamented, eyes hollow. "And neither can I."
"Now!"
I jerked my fingers down, and Trinity fell like a sack of stones, and the second she was out of the way, I pulled my trigger and put a bullet square in her heart.
Minnie didn't even have a chance to fire her gun. She hit the floor with a thud, and Trinity, for all that the last time I saw her I told her she meant nothing to us but a means to an end, wasted no time in moving to my side.
"You came."
"Of course. You called." I swallowed the pain from the realization that I'd made her think I wouldn't. I couldn't appreciate how it felt to have her safe against me when she wrapped her arms around me, because I didn't deserve that relief. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Drug you?" My hand not holding a gun tugged her back, hoping to inspect her in what little time I had before shit hit the fan here.
The cops were on the way. Those who weren't already outside, waiting for these cretin to flee the building, anyhow. Hawke and Asher would find us soon enough.
"I'm fine," she muttered against my chest, but the wince when I brushed my other hand over the back of her neck told me someonehadhurt her at some point. "Mostly." She turned around, putting her back to my chest, and scanned the room. "What about the other girls?"
"Hawke will get them out of here," I reassured her, a hand on her waist as I guided her away from the fray. I had to get her out of here, had to make sure she was safe. "Let's get you out of here, too."
She didn't put up a fight.
We didn't run into Asher or Hawke on the way out, but once we were free of the building and the police swarmed the place tofind stragglers, they found us by the car, where I'd dragged an EMT away to inspect Trinity for injuries.
"I'll take care of it," Asher growled, tugging the EMT away from Trinity with a gentleness I know he didn't feel. "You should see to the others."
"Sure," the woman muttered, eyeing Asher's blood-stained shirt and feral glare with apprehension. "I'll just—yeah."
And then there was just us, and Trinity, and things got messy, fast.
"Tee-Bird—" Hawke surged her, grabbing for her hands, turning them over and over in his search for injuries. "Are you?—?"
"I'm fine, Hawke," she muttered, her eyes on the ground. "I promise."
"She's been hit," I told Asher, "back of her head and neck. She flinched when I touched it."
He was behind her in seconds, pulling her hair out of the way to check her for marks. His fingers poked and prodded her, and I had to watch her withstand his inspection, even as it caused her pain.
"She'll be okay, just a little sore, I think," he said finally, putting her hair back down with a frown. "Did someone pistol whip you or something?"
